In a signal the community may finally see progress on the decades-long effort to rebuild or replace the 100-year-old structure, some board members said that they do intend to move forward with doing something about a building deemed unsafe.

The massive Japan earthquake last month seems to have moved the courthouse, long considered a earthquake hazard, up in priority for the cash-strapped county. Even back in 1991, a study of the courthouse warned that the building could collapse in an earthquake and needed major seismic upgrades.

"This board is going to build a new downtown courthouse," said Commissioner Judy Shiprack. "This is not a hypothetical disaster that we are protecting ourselves from. It is not a matter of if, but when. It is an obligation we're taking seriously."

But funding the large price tag to rebuild or replace the courthouse has stalled efforts for decades.

Don Eggleston of SERA Architects said his firm has come up with a unique "ship in the bottle" approach to reconstructing the courthouse from the inside out while allowing the court business to continue. This mitigates one of the main funding concerns, the costs of having to move the courts somewhere else during construction.

The renovations would include seismic upgrades, would add two courtrooms to each floor and build a ninth floor, add elevators and would replace the building's infastructure.

It's price tag: Up to $220 million. The project would also take up to six years to complete, with construction occurring between 4 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Even without figuring out the funding, the plan has a few hitches. Some of the changes could boot the building from the historic registry. And the renovations only give the county 40 more years.

That concerned County Chairman Jeff Cogen. "That doesn't seem that long," he said. "The building needed to be repaired for 40 years."

Eggleston said the building systems would have to be fixed or replaced by then.

Commissioners also heard from supporters of the new courthouse, who by now have come before the commissioners for years with the same plea.

Judge Jean Maurer, who presides over the Multnomah County Circuit Court, said many people are required to come into the downtown courthouse. Jurors, witnesses, crime victims, lawyers and judges -- about 3,000 people a day. But the building is unsafe.

"If anything brought this in to high focus it is what happened in Japan," Maurer said. "I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this endeavor. I just cannot
stress this enough. It worries me everyday that we could be Japan."

District Attorney Mike Schrunk said he'd served on 20 downtown courthouse study committees. "What's been brought to you is a very thoughtful analysis of how it can be done," he said.

At the end of the briefing, Commissioner Diane McKeel gave assurances that the board knew the concerns and intended to do something about them. "We are committed," she said, pointing out that the new East County courthouse was also a decades-long process but that the board finally moved forward with it.